U.S. Constitution

On Tuesday this week we all should have been jubilantly celebrating the 224th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the original 10 amendments to the United States’ federal constitution. Remarkably, it slipped by relatively unremarked. Yet our Bill of Rights may actually be the most significant of our republic’s founding documents.

The generations who founded America and our republic saw that ensuring the individual rights of free people was necessary to limiting government power and to their own pursuit of happiness. This came to be expressed in our Bill of Rights with its ultimate guarantor, the Second Amendment.

Several letters, including some long ones, have been published in my local newspaper, the Macon Telegraph, demonizing Donald Trump. One letter pretending to objectivity and citing the liberal media asserted that Trump told more lies than Hillary — as if a Krystal patty was as big as a Burger King whopper or a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder! Trump may tell little tales from time to time to shock and capitalize on media publicity, even if in the negative. How else could he get through the fog and for free too!

My mother and I recently had a difference of opinion regarding Pope Francis. I said that he was naive and certainly not of the caliber of his two previous distinguished predecessors, the two towers of intellect: John Paul II, canonized as Saint John Paul the Great by his brilliant successor, Benedict XVI. She said Pope Francis knew what he was doing and by his words and action is a communist. He has brought about the friendship between President Obama and a dictator, who along with his more majestic brother, has held the Cuban people captive for over half a century.

My mother and I recently had a difference of opinion regarding Pope Francis. I said that he was naive and certainly not of the caliber of his two previous distinguished predecessors, the two towers of intellect: John Paul II, canonized as Saint John Paul the Great by his brilliant successor, Benedict XVI. She said Pope Francis knew what he was doing and by his words and action is a communist. He has brought about the friendship between President Obama and a dictator, who along with his more majestic brother, has held the Cuban people captive for over half a century.

It is bad enough for Supreme Court Justices to throw political shibboleths in private conversations or even in speeches on the lecture circuit, but it is even more egregious when they show their political bias openly in public statements to the sensationalist media and immerse themselves in disgraceful political controversies.

I do not mind disagreeing with a fellow conservative when he happens to be local columnist Erick Erickson. Erickson has become the self-appointed arbiter of the limits of “respectable” conservatism. Anyone transcending beyond those limits is to be ostracized, as has happened with his attacks on Donald Trump (photo, below).

There is a Cuban proverb that reads: Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres, which roughly translates: "Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are." For those who have not studied the issues and ramifications of convening a Constitutional Convention, now referred to as "Convention of States" to make it more palatable to state rights conservatives, the Cuban refrain should ring bells of concern. The Left has brought forth this issue numerous times.

The Last Founding Father — James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness by Harlow Giles Unger (2009) is a well written and eloquently narrated book that goes a long way to accomplish what it set out to do — to make James Monroe, not only the last Founding Father, but also the greatest of the founders, second only to George Washington.

Recently, Bill Ferguson, a local columnist in The Macon Telegraph, opined it is "time to call for a new constitutional convention." To make his points, he tells us about the public's general dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in our nation, and then tries to scare us to death with the frightening scenarios of a government shutdown, the U.S. defaulting on the national debt, and the gridlock in Congress, so that "these once-unthinkable situations could come to pass."(1)

In a recent article, Bill Ferguson, a local columnist for The Telegraph (Macon, Georgia), attempts to give readers a strong political soporific, as to deaden their need to remain informed and vigilant when it comes to guarding their Second Amendment rights from usurpation by a UN treaty.(1) But before that, he takes a swipe at conservatives, while intimating that he himself is a moderate Republican and was even a Romney supporter in the last election.(2) Once again, we have a liberal writer masquerading as a reluctant Republican or centrist, as to make his snake oil elixir a bit mo

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

— Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principlesof the Federal Constitution, 1787

In the wake of President Barack Obama's re-election on November 6, 2012, and the virtual demoralization of Republicans, it is important to recognize that the political mastery of the left does not last forever. Moreover, three new conservative, pro-Second Amendment senators and several freshmen representatives were elected. A solid Republican majority was preserved in the House of Representatives. So, the election did not mean complete defeat for the GOP.

Miguel Faria, MD, a neurosurgeon and Emeritus Editor of The Journal of The American Physicians and Surgeons, formerly the Medical Sentinel, and Associate Editor-in-Chief of Surgical Neurology International and its World Affairs Section, has written a two‑part Editorial on “America, Guns, and Freedom.” These essays address a very important topic to physicians everywhere, relate to the often, distorted media reports advocating the disarming of citizens, and the costs of health care of guns in the hands of citizens.

The role of gun violence and street crime in the United States and the world is currently a subject of great debate among national and international organizations, including the United Nations. Because the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the individual right of American citizens to own private firearms, availability of firearms is greater in the U.S. than the rest of the world, except perhaps in Israel and Switzerland.

The role of gun violence and street crime in the United States and the world is currently a subject of great debate among national and international organizations, including the United Nations. Because the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the individual right of American citizens to own private firearms, availability of firearms is greater in the U.S. than the rest of the world, except perhaps in Israel and Switzerland.

The upholding of Obamacare by the Supreme Court in an unexpected 5-4 political decision is a travesty of American constitutionality. It is a sad day in the country when a knowledgeable chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court betrays the country and places himself and his legacy -- not to mention the chants for “change” and “progress,” and his obvious desire for a favorable, epochal association with the first African-American president -- ahead of the moral and economic well-being of the nation.

The upholding of ObamaCare by the Supreme Court in an unexpected 5-4 political decision is a travesty of American constitutionality. It is a sad day in the country when a knowledgeable Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court betrays the country and places himself and his legacy — not to mention the chants for "change" and "progress," and his obvious desire for a favorable, epochal association with the first African-American president — ahead of the moral and economic well being of the nation.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010), more commonly referred to as ObamaCare, has become one of the most controversial pieces of legislation passed by the Democrat-controlled, 111th U.S. Congress during President Obama’s administration.

Recent Macon Telegraph articles and Letters to the Editor continue to discuss "separation of church and state," but frankly, many of them miss the mark. Our Founding Fathers, even Thomas Jefferson, meant something completely different in the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution than what liberal pundits are leading us to believe.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”— First Amendment in the Bill of Rights

Miguel Faria was the Editor of The Medical Sentinel, a publication of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which supports fundamental liberty for all people and governmental non-intervention in the Practice of Medicine. Miguel was a refugee from Cuba during the 1960s when that country was taken over by a communist revolution. He escaped with his family to the USA and went on to become a US citizen, a neurosurgeon, and a noted author of several books on history, liberty, and authoritarian governments.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010), more commonly referred to as ObamaCare, has become one of the most controversial pieces of legislation passed by the Democrat-controlled, 111th U.S. Congress during President Obama’s administration.

Just this week, as I was commenting on Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 or National Defense law that was signed by President Barack Obama, the question came up of whether the Supreme Court would rule this offending portion unconstitutional. My response follows:

It has come to my attention some letter writers in The Telegraph and posters at Macon.com, have taken umbrage with the use of the word “socialism” in describing the worsening state of affairs in our nation today — from exorbitant, crippling regulations and taxation to abuse of the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution.

Nominated by President Barack Obama (after Justice John Paul Stevens retired in April 2010), Elena Kagan has been the first U.S. Supreme Court Justice appointed without prior experience as a judge since the appointment of William Rehnquist in 1972. It now seems to me that her nomination by President Obama was payback for the fact that Kagan had legally represented him in stalling all court challenges attempting to ascertain Obama's citizenship.(1) But what about her standing on the Second Amendment?

Diary of Dreams performs at the 2016 M’era Luna festival in Hildesheim, Germany. M’era Luna, “one of the biggest dark music events in Germany,” is held each year on the second weekend in August. Close to 25,000 people attend the festival annually to hear gothic, metal and industrial music performed on two large festival-style stages.